


Locket

by elynne



Series: The Warden's Path [5]
Category: Dragon Age
Genre: Gen, Introspection, quest item, the bigger picture, the ongoing cost of war, too much time to think in the early morning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-02
Updated: 2012-07-02
Packaged: 2017-11-09 00:23:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/449173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elynne/pseuds/elynne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A small piece of jewelry weighs heavily on Alistair's mind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Locket

Nothing ever happened in the third watch. It ended just before sunrise, when the air began going grey and clear, and the others would begin waking up at their own pace for the morning preparations. But the hours before sunrise seemed to stretch, black and endless, an eternity of darkness when anything might happen – but nothing ever did.

Pacing through and around the camp, as quietly as possible in his heavy metal armor, Alistair remained alert. If something did happen, he would never forgive himself if he carelessly missed the first signs. Still, having become accustomed to the noises of animals in the night and wind in tree branches, even while he was aware of the world outside, he found himself thinking still of an item he'd found the day before.

They'd been attacked in an ambush by bandits; these had been unusually sensible, and after cutting down nearly half their gang, the rest had fled into the forest. Always in need of better equipment, and resources to bolster their humble means, they'd given the bodies of the slain a thorough search. Under the shirt of a heavily scarred and tough-looking man, Alistair had found a necklace – a simple leather thong that carried two rough carved wooden beads, and an exquisitely engraved golden locket. Inside the locket had been no words or picture, but only a short wisp of brown hair, painstakingly knotted with a length of scarlet thread.

Though he'd taken the locket, Alistair hadn't sold it to the dwarf merchants that now traveled with their camp, or even shown it to anybody. His hand went to his chest, where his own treasured amulet rested, nestled safely under layers of padding and steel. For some reason, he wasn't able to stop thinking about the golden locket and its humble contents.

It seemed obvious that the bandit would have opened the locket at some point, and wouldn't have bothered to keep anything in it that wasn't important to him. For that matter, if he'd stolen it from somebody, why hadn't he sold it? Was it possible that the locket had been given to him? Was the twist of hair from someone in his family? It would be easiest on Alistair's own conscience to believe that it was a favor from a prostitute, some favorite fallen woman of the bandit's gang perhaps. But it was impossible for him to erase the image of that bandit smiling at a little girl, who handed him the wisp that matched her own hair with an earnest demand that he promise to come home safe.

Darkspawn were easy: they were evil and needed to be destroyed. People, on the other hand... he'd felt vaguely ashamed when they'd been attacked by a ragtag gang of refugees in the fields outside Lothering. There had never been any doubt of who would win that fight. The men who'd attacked them had made a stupid choice in their desperation, and they'd paid for it dearly. Using the reflexes and strength honed by years of training and grim battles he'd won against darkspawn, killing the peasant men had been as easy as slaughtering sheep. Of course, they couldn't just lay their weapons aside and let the refugees kill them for the bounty – what would that have accomplished? They'd fought to save their lives, and in preserving the last of the Grey Wardens, indirectly to save the land and every person who would be devoured if the Blight was not stopped.

Templar training was more than just physical exercise and learning to counter the use of magic. Along with the practical aspects, there was the unrelenting assertion that mages were not like other people. The statement that “innocents must be protected from the dangers of mages” presumed that a mage could never be innocent. It had taken a while for Alistair to figure out this part of the training, the mental conditioning to believe that people who used magic were somehow not real people at all. The realization had made him uneasy, and had led to more questions, which in turn had gotten him into more trouble with the instructors.

As they'd carved their way across the land on a desperate race to muster forces against the coming Blight, Alistair had allowed himself to slip into the righteous safety of the Templar mindset – anybody who opposed the Grey Wardens were inherently wrong, and probably evil, and deserved only death. Finding the locket had stirred up his old uncertainties and questions. These were real people they sometimes fought and killed, the same people that they were meant to be protecting.

And this locket... how far had it traveled from the jeweler who had first created it? How many people had treasured it, then lost it to the hands of another? What items might have been stored in it – a note, a flower, a key? If Alistair sold it to the merchant, it would almost certainly be sold again, and its journey would continue... traded, stolen, captured, lost and then found again. For a moment, he considered giving it to Natalia, then pushed the thought away with a shudder. He even briefly imagined leaving it in front of Morrigan's tent; he'd seen that she liked shiny, pretty jewelry, despite her protestations.

Taking a long, cold breath, he looked around the silent camp and clearing. There was a very faint luminescence in the air, the teasing promise of the sun's light creeping towards the horizon. Alistair picked his way through the darkness to a pair of stumps where they'd cut firewood. Tobias lifted his head and whuffled quietly, watching as the Warden carefully took something shiny out of his belt pouch. A single glint of starlight flashed across its golden surface. Then Alistair brought a rock down onto the locket, smashing it in one blow into an unrecognizable, twisted lump. In the morning, he'd sell it to the merchants for a few coppers, and it would most likely eventually find its way back to a jeweler. 

“I will do all I can to ensure that when you are remade, whatever you become, you will know only peace.” He stared at the crushed object in his hand as the sun's glow brightened the sky, then looked up to see Leliana's tent flap opening. Slipping the ruined jewelry into his pouch, he waved to the bard, then moved off to the nearby stream, to bring a bucket of water for the companions to use for breakfast and washing.


End file.
